Ed Brisson

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – September 20, 2023

September 19, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

It’s time to take a look at what’s out from Marvel Comics this week! This post covers Marvel Comics September 20 2023 releases.

This list includes every comic and digital comic out from Marvel this week, plus collected editions in omnibus, hardcover, paperback, and digest-sized formats. For each new release, I’ll point you to the right guide within my Crushing Comics Guide to Marvel Comics to find out how to collect each character in full – and, if a guide is linked from this post, that means it is updated through the present day!

Plus, I’m getting close to caught up on reading all of the Marvel Universe – so I have some commentary on some of the single issues and new collections.

Marvel Comics September 20 2023 Collected Editions

The Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection, Vol. 22: Round Robin
(2015 paperback, ISBN 978-0785192688 / 2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950545 / digital)
See Guide to Spider-Man, Peter Parker (1963-2018). I’ve just updated all of the Amazing Epic Collections on the guide and I was shocked at how many of them have been back to print in the past three lines. Even Epics of relatively insignificant runs! Marvel has truly found a way to create a Manga-Style, well-organized, evergreen line of their entire comics history and we love to see it.

The Avengers Omnibus Vol. 4
(2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953621 / digital)
See the freshly rebuilt Guide to Avengers (1963-1996)! This is the last of the four reprints in addition to a brand new Volume 5 out this month. We love to see this line advancing without new Avengers movies on the big screen, which used to be the only way it got a new volume.

Bloodline: Daughter of Blade
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302924423 / digital)
See Guide to Blade. This series has an awkward history – originally it was meant to be launched by Tim Seeley several years ago, and then it was shelved and seemingly lost before it was revived (and revised) by Danny Lore. Unfortunately, this just didn’t hold together for me. It wasn’t Lore’s fault – I think the artist had trouble keeping up with a story that repeatedly mixed casual scenes with action scenes. The discontinuity of storytelling in the art eventually wore me down.

Captain Marvel: The Saga of Carol Danvers
(2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302951818 / digital)
See Guide to Captain Marvel – Carol Danvers. This is a peculiar trade that’s more of a sampler for the movie crowd then a trade for a consistent bookshelf. It collects the opening eights issues of Kelly Sue DeConnick’s 2012 Carol Danvers series (which includes a great pair of issues where she meets up with Monica Rambeau) as well as the origin-redefining The Life of Captain Marvel (2018), which brought her comic origins more in line with the MCU (booo!).

New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – September 13, 2023

September 12, 2023 by krisis Leave a Comment

It’s time to take a look at what’s out from Marvel Comics this week! This post covers Marvel Comics September 13 2023 releases.

Plus, I’m getting close to caught up on reading all of the Marvel Universe – so I have some commentary on some of the single issues and new collections.

Marvel Comics September 13 2023 Collected Editions

Bishop: War College (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302948054 / digital)
See Guide to X-Men – The Age of Krakoa. I read the first issue of this book back when it was released, and it’s an odd bird. A book about Bishop training young X-Men in the defense of Krakoa would’ve been a solid hit, but what we actually got was Bishop dealing with an inane alternate universe side quest while the X-kids got cornered by a villain in their own subplot. If I’m being honest, this pitch never should’ve received a green light.

Captain America: Cold War (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302952389 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America – Steve Rogers. This collects the crossover intersection between the Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson Cap titles. There’s only another three issues of both titles combined after this, which makes it odd that they didn’t simply close out the runs in this volume, but there will be a separate “Finale” volume in a few months with Sentinel of Liberty #14, Cap #750, and a Finale issue.

Captain America by Ed Brubaker: Captain America Lives! Omnibus [AKA Vol. 3] (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302954468 / digital)
See Guide to Captain America – Steve Rogers. This omnibus reprint tracks the return of Steve Rogers at the end of the period where Winter Soldier was serving as the primary Captain America. This book doesn’t stand so well on its own – you probably want to first read Brubaker Omnibus, Vol. 2: The Death of Captain America (2009 hardcover, ISBN 978-0785138068 / 2021 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302929619) to understand the story.

Captain Marvel: Game On (2023 digest-sized paperback, ISBN 978-1302951153)
See Guide to Captain Marvel – Carol Danvers. In a totally brilliant move by Marvel, this is a recollection of the all-ages Marvel Action Captain Marvel (2019) #1-6 and Marvel Action Captain Marvel (2021) #1-5. Both the kid and I absolutely loved these books – they’re very close to actual Marvel continuity and Sam Maggs’s writing for Carol is spot on. Highly recommended for Captain Marvel fans of truly any age!

Captain Marvel: The Saga of Monica Rambeau (2023 “Saga of” paperback, ISBN 978-1302950996 / digital)
See Guide to… Monica Rambeau? Hmm, I should probably have one of those… maybe you should check back in a week or two 😉. In the meantime, Monica’s comics appear in Guide to Captain Marvel – Carol Danvers. If you want Monica’s early comics history, this is a fairly complete collection of her greatest hits and solo stories of the 80s and 90s reprinted from a 2019 Direct-Market-only volume.

Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness: The Art of the Movie (2023 hardcover, ISBN 978-1302945879)
See Guide to Doctor Strange.

Marvel-Verse: Kraven The Hunter (2023 digest-sized paperback, ISBN 978-1302950644 / digital)
In a relief to me specifically, this “kids and libraries” targeted digest-size collection does not collect any in-continuity Spidey stories, so it is not covered by any of my guides! It collects Collects Marvel Action Spider-Man (2018) #5-6, Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (2005) #7, Marvel Adventures Super Heroes (2010) #4, Spidey (2015) #9.

Moon Knight Vol. 4: Road to Ruin (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302947354 / digital)
See Guide to Moon Knight. This is more of Jed MacKay’s spectacular Moon Knight run, one of of my favorite books at Marvel! While I think this series is worth reading from the start, this story does pick up from a solid jumping-on point for the big antagonist in the past year of this run.

Star Wars: Sana Starros – Family Matters (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302933074 / digital)
See Guide to Star Wars Expanded Universe Comics (2015-Present).

Venom Epic Collection: The Madness (Vol. 3) (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302953874 / digital)
See Guide to Venom. This is the the third Epic Collection volume in the Venom line, but it’s actually the first that is fully collecting Venom’s own mini-series, rather than mostly his appearances in Amazing Spider-Man. While his landmark first mini Lethal Protector is in the prior volume, this collects his mini-series from 1993 and 1994.

Wolverine Omnibus Vol. 4 (2023 oversize hardcover, ISBN 978-1302953997 / digital)
See Guide to Wolverine – Logan. This collects the year of stories leading up to Logan losing his adamantium in issue #75 in 1993, which is the final issue in this collection – as well as the original graphic novels and Marvel Comics Presents issues released at the same time.

X-Men Epic Collection: Proteus (2023 paperback, ISBN 978-1302950538 / digital)
See Guide to Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont (1975-1991). If it’s helpful to you to think about this another way, we could call this Epic Collection “Phoenix Saga Prologue.” It covers the break-up and reunion of the team after their throwdown with Magneto in his volcano base, plus the debuts of Alpha Flight, Arcade, and Proteus! That’s a lot of major X-Men history packed all into one book. If you enjoy Phoenix Saga, this is a natural extension for you. However, if you only enjoy later 80s X-Men, it might not be a total slam dunk – Claremont is still getting his feet under him at this point, and his character voices don’t quite meet the standard of his amazing plots just yet.

Read on for a summary of all of the Marvel Comics September 13 2023 single issue and digital releases! [Read more…] about New Comics & Collected Editions: Marvel Comics – September 13, 2023

Tigereyes Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 11th Annual Secret Ballot Results & Mappings

April 17, 2023 by krisis 4 Comments

This morning I had the absolute pleasure of announcing the results of the Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus 11th Annual Secret Ballot with Near Mint Condition!

The Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus Secret Ballot is an annual poll conducted by a mysterious comic book forum user named Tigereyes. The rules are simple: anyone can email Tigereyes up to 10 picks for their most-wanted, never-before-printed omnibuses of material originally printed by Marvel, even if they may no longer own the licensing rights.

Each first vote gets 10 points, each second vote gets 9 points, all the way down to your tenth vote getting just 1 point. After the voting period, Tigereyes goes through the gargantuan effort of tallying up all the votes – which also involves figuring out what everyone meant by their sometimes inconsistently-named or cryptically-described votes.

For me, the reveal of the results of the Tigereyes Secret Ballot is an international comics-loving holiday. I used to be the primary person on the internet creating statistics from the results every year! However, when I attempted to cover the entire poll entry-by-entry in 2017 I stalled out at the halfway point as the results straddled our move to New Zealand.

That’s why it was worth waking up at 4am NZ time to be ready to share this year’s results with my good friends Omar and Jess on the Near Mint Condition channel, thanks to some last-minute planning with Omar over the weekend.

Our show was nearly three hours long as we dug into the potential contents of every book on the list and whether we’d read them or not. As always, I had just as much fun appearing on-camera as I did chatting with all of the wonderful Minties in the live chat!

Don’t have time for the full 3-hour tour? We actually run down the full 60-book list in just 15 minutes, starting just before the 12-minute mark. I’m sharing the full list below, but it’s more than just a list – every omnibus includes a full suggested omnibus mapping along with a link to the relevant collecting guide on Crushing Comics.

That’s right, y’all – this is a post with SIXTY omnibus mappings in it, mapping well over 2,000 issues of comics. (Actually, it’s even more than that – there’s one tie, and in several entries I get into mapping second volumes if they would complete a run). That makes that one of the longest blog posts in 23 years of CrushingKrisis history.

Are you ready to be rocked by the Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus vote? Strap in, true believers, and prepare to be mapped like you’ve never been mapped before.

The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

March 18, 2018 by krisis

The Pull List was slightly lighter this week than the past three, partially due to me not managing to pick up any additional ongoings from Marvel or DC. I made a heroic effort to catch all the way up with Doctor Strange, but fell an arc short.

This week’s comics felt a little ho-hum for me, with even typical standouts like Flash and Paradiso falling flat. However, it also brought not one but two near-perfect comics, plus one unexpectedly great debut.

Here’s The Pull List for the 14th of March, 2018. New adds to the pull list are marked with *; dropped titles are marked with #.

Artwork from Infidel #1 cover by Aaron Campbell & José Villarrubia

DC Comics
- Action Comics (2016) #999
- Batgirl and The Birds of Prey (2016) #20
- Detective Comics (2016) #976
- *Eternity Girl (2018) #1
- The Flash (2016) #42
- Mister Miracle (2017) #7
- Sideways (2018) #2
- Suicide Squad (2016) #37
- Titans (2016) #21
- Trinity (2016) #19
- Wonder Woman (2016) #42
Image Comics
- Bonehead (2018) #3
- *#Dry County (2018) #1
- *Infidel (2018) #1
- Paradiso (2017) #4
- #Sleepless (2017) #4
- Slots (2017) #6
- VS (2018) #2
Marvel Comics
- All-New Wolverine (2016) #32
- Astonishing X-Men (2017) #9
- Avengers (2017) #684
- Marvel Two-in-One (2018) #4
- New Mutants – Dead Souls (2018) #1
- Old Man Logan (2016) #36
- Weapon X (2017) #15
- X-Men: Blue (2017) #23
Smaller Publishers: Aftershock Comics, Archie Comics, Black Mask Studios, & Boom! Studios
- Judas (2017) #4, Boom! Studios
- *Come Into Me (2018) #1, Black Mask Studios
- *Vampironica (2018) #1, Archie Comics
- *Betrothed (2018) #1, Aftershock Comics

Before we begin, a reminder that 2.5 stars on my rating scale is an average comic book and my bell curve distribution peaks at 3/5 stars! Don’t freak out and assume a comic book is terrible because it has 2 stars. That means it’s just a hair below average (and there are a lot of those this week)

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Pick of the Week:
Action Comics (2016) #999, DC Comics

Dan Jurgens leaves us with a truly perfect, contemplative issue of Superman that puts a wrap on his stellar Rebirth run but also addresses his writing from over 25 years ago, as beautifully rendered by artist Will Conrad and colorist Ivan Nunes.

In Metropolis, Lois is newly reunited with her estranged Army General father after saving him from execution in the last arc. It’s his first time meeting Jon (sort of), but General Lane isn’t in on the Superman secret, so he thinks Jon is a regular kid. That makes it even more tense as Lois and her father square off across the dinner table about the philosophy of Superman. Jon has never been exposed to this kind of hatred and xenophobia about his father before – which is also, by extension, aimed at him.

Meanwhile, Superman is in space dealing with a routine chore of breaking up an asteroid that will stray a bit too close to Earth for STAR Labs liking. Superman is thinking about fathers – General Lane, his own father Jor-El, as well as Zod – all of whom were tangled in the cross-time plot he just wrapped with Booster Gold.

Superman can see the errors in the ways of each of those parents and they in turn reflect his errors back upon him. Clark Kent is good-natured to a fault, but he’s not always right. General Lane isn’t entirely wrong about him – sometimes his absolute power corrupts him, both in how he metes out justice and in how he isn’t accustomed to apologizing for his actions.

As a result, Superman decides to put right two wrongs. One is with Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman, who he currently has imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. The other, eventually is General Lane. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

This Week in X: All-New Wolverine #32, Astonishing X-Men #9, New Mutants – Dead Souls #1, Old Man Logan #36, Weapon X #15, & X-Men Blue #23

March 16, 2018 by krisis

It’s the eleventh week of new comics in 2018, and This Week in X has six new titles to review – so many that I mistakenly omitted one the first time I edited this video. I’ve never had to count as high as six before!

This week, I cover:

All-New Wolverine #32, a pleasant (if pandering) one-shot epilogue to “Orphans of X”
Astonishing X-Men #9, a dull middle chapter that does a lot of telling rather than showing
New Mutants – Dead Souls #1, a solid hit for lovers of every era of New Mutants
Old Man Logan #36, which flirts with some heavy themes before turning into a MacGuffin hunt
Weapon X #15, a surprisingly satisfying (and unsurprisingly bloody) tussle
X-Men Blue #23, far and away the best issue of this series and a return to form for Cullen Bunn

Learn more about how each of those series reached their current issues and hear which ones I’d recommend picking up.